Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead, х ethanatootheete (G2289)] - 'were put to death,' or 'became dead,'
To the law by the body of Christ - through union to that "body broken for them,"
That ye should be married ('joined') to another, [even] to him who is ('that was') raised from the dead, [to the intent] that we should bring forth fruit unto God. It has been thought by a number of excellent critics that the apostle has here expressed the opposite of what his argument required-has said that we died to the law; whereas his argument is, that the law died to us-and that he purposely inverted the figure to avoid the harshness to Jewish ears of such an idea as the death of the law. (So Origen, Chrysostom, Calvin, Tholuck, DeWette-who ascribes the inversion of the figure to confusion in the apostle's mind-Hodge, Webster and Wilkinson, Vaughan.) But if this idea would sound harsh to Jewish ears, it would not be softened by insinuating without expressing it, much less by saying just the reverse of what was meant. But they mistake the apostle's design in employing this figure, which was merely to illustrate the general principle, that 'death dissolves legal obligation.' It was essential to his argument that we, not the law, should be the dying party, since it is we that are "crucified with Christ," and not the law. This death dissolves our marriage-obligation to the law, leaving us at liberty to contract a new relation-to be joined to the Risen One, in order to spiritual fruitfulness, to the glory of God. (So Beza, Fritzsche, Olshausen, Alford, etc.) The confusion, then, is in the expositors, not the text; and it has arisen from not observing that, like Jesus Himself, believes are here viewed as having a double life-the old sin-condemned life, which they lay down with Christ, and the new life of acceptance and holiness to which they rise with their Surety and Head; and all the issues of this new life, in Christian obedience, are regarded as the "fruit" of this blessed marriage-union to the Risen One.
But another thing must be observed in this profound verse. It seems to ascribe to the believer not only a double marriage (first to the law and then to Christ), but a double marriage to Christ Himself-first to the crucified and then to the risen Christ. But this is only apparent. The spiritual reality, rightly apprehended, dissipates the seeming incongruity. When the apostle says that we become dead to the law by the body of Christ (or, that our marriage-relation on to the law ceased with our union to the Crucified One), and then adds that this was in order to our being united to the Risen One, the meaning is not that the union to Christ crucified was dissolved, in order to our union to Christ risen. It is the necessities of the figure that occasioned this manner of speech. And what is meant is plainly this, that the expiatory death of Christ, to whom they have been united by faith, as thoroughly dissolved the claims of the law on believers as the husband's death sets his wife at liberty; and now that Christ is risen from the dead, that same union to Him is in reality their new marriage to the Living One-in virtue of which the requirements of the law are so far from being disregarded, or more feebly met, than when we were in bondage to it, that the "fruit" of our marriage-union to the Risen One is an obedience to God such as we never did nor could yield before. See John 15:8, where the "fruit" of union to Christ is quite similarly set forth-only there under the figure of a vegetable, as here of a conjugal union.
How such Holy Fruitfulness was Impossible while We were under the Law, and before our Union to Christ, Is Now Declared